Advertising at those events violated rules intended to prevent cannabis companies from marketing to children, according to an Aug. 5 consent order with the Maryland Cannabis Administration. It says 2023’s Hot Summer Music Festival in Cockeysville, where Curio operated a canopy, and that year’s Baltimore Running Festival, where the 5K race was named for its cannabis brand sponsor, both offered activities for people of all ages — including those under 21.

Curio’s leadership, which signed on to the consent order, noted in an interview that the violations came within the month that followed the state changing its advertising regulations as it moved to legalize recreational cannabis. The Baltimore Sun’s principal owner, Sinclair Broadcast Group Executive Chair David D. Smith, is an investor in the cannabis brand.

In the legislation that ultimately launched the state’s recreational cannabis industry in July 2023, Maryland adopted some of the nation’s strongest regulations on legal cannabis, with public health experts hailing stringent product testing requirements and laws aimed at preventing marketing cannabis to children. Maryland law restricts advertising cannabis “directly or indirectly” to minors, with rules restricting images attractive to children, such as food products, cartoons, toys or animals, in advertising.

Cannabis companies are also barred from some advertising efforts without showing that at least 85% of the marketing audience is “reasonably expected” to be over the age of 21. Curio did not provide “reliable and current” audience composition data information for either event, the consent order says.

Wendy Bronfein, the company’s chief brand officer and director of public policy, said balancing the company’s marketing with Maryland’s “highly restrictive” regulations was “a really hard space,” adding that she believed the company had proved themselves “in a responsible way” over the course of the past several years to avoid any appearance of malicious intent.

She noted that Curio had sponsored the Baltimore Running Festival for several years prior to the adoption of stricter regulations. The company produces non-psychoactive topical products for aches and pains, which Bronfein said made the brand a “really good fit” for the event. The music festival was an “adult-centric event” that made most of its money off alcohol sales, she said.

But the music festival at Oregon Ridge Park had also advertised activities “specifically for children and families,” the consent order says. The running festival, where Curio’s name and logo appeared on the runner handbook, lanyards and the title of the 2023 Curio Wellness 5K, allowed individuals of all ages to participate and had a designated “Kids Fun Zone” with inflatable activities and games, according to the order.

Curio leadership, which the cannabis administration said cooperated with the investigation, signed off on the consent order in late July, waiving their right to contest the violation.

The Timonium-based cannabis company, which also operates in Missouri, has faced regulatory scrutiny before — in February, the business was ordered to pay a $26,000 fine after its flagship dispensary, Far & Dotter, sold 64 Amnesia OG flower packages that had been in a dumpster for two days.

Although Maryland’s cannabis laws include stringent rules covering marketing, many of the companies with public actions against them have faced charges for violations regarding inventory and ownership matters.

But Curio is not the only company to face a financial penalty under cannabis marketing laws. Cookies, a dispensary in South Baltimore, had its license temporarily suspended and was ordered to pay a $81,500 fine last year for a combination of security failures and marketing violations related to an advertisement that depicted cartoons including “several local mascots,” as well as the “likeness of two celebrities.”

In the first five days recreational marijuana was available at dispensaries across the state, nearly $12 million in sales were reported.

Business at some spots nearly tripled, and that has growers like King City Gardens in the Cincinnati area busy.

The cultivation center sells to about 130 dispensaries. Its co-founder says that number will jump to more than 400 once more places get recreational approval and additional ones are built. It’s using every inch of indoor growing space from the ground up.

“A lot of dispensaries are putting a lot of orders in,” King City Gardens co-founder Caveh Azadeh said. “We’re seeing our products being sold at a much faster velocity than before, so that’s very exciting.”

King City Gardens built up a stockpile of 11,000 pounds. Azadeh said it can have even more plants now that it has its dual license to sell medicinal and recreational marijuana. It’s also growing its staff. At this time last year, it had no employees, but it now has 180, with plans to add more as it opens its own dispensaries.

Some have questioned whether the new recreational demand threatens the medical supply, but Azadeh said he doesn’t think it will because dual cultivators are allowed more plants than existing medicinal growers.

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Gov. Wes Moore’s office, which has been overseeing much of the state’s implementation of last year’s cannabis reform act, said Wednesday that recreational sales from July 2023 through June 2024 totaled more than $700 million and medical sales totaled nearly $400 million.

“Our new adult-use cannabis market isn’t only generating extraordinary economic activity – it’s also helping us build new pathways to work, wages, and wealth for all,” Moore said in a news release.

The first nine months of legalization netted the state around $41.4 million in revenue from a 9% tax on recreational cannabis purchases, Comptroller Brooke Lierman’s office said last week. Around a third of that revenue is placed into a state fund that is then distributed to communities based on how heavily they were impacted by cannabis prohibition.

Much of Maryland’s cannabis reform law aims to undo the lasting impacts of the decadeslong U.S. campaign to curb drug abuse through criminal enforcement, which amplified cycles of poverty by incarcerating millions of Americans — disproportionately Black, Latino and other racial minorities — with criminal records for drug offenses.

An additional lottery drawing held by the state’s cannabis administration last week brought the total number of “social equity” licenses — authorizations to grow, process and sell marijuana in the state issued to potential businesses with disproportionately impacted ownership — to 205. A workforce development program run by the state will start helping to train new workers for the growing cannabis industry, with priority given to people who were charged with cannabis-related offenses.

Though Maryland voters overwhelmingly approved of legalizing cannabis, a recent Washington Post-University of Maryland poll showed that support might have waned in the first year. Some localities have tried to tighten rules around where cannabis dispensaries can be located, and one even floated the concept of again outlawing cannabis. Some officials and experts remain concerned about certain long-term health impacts of the legal market. To address some of those concerns, the state has launched a public health campaign focused on educating Maryland residents about issues like intoxicated driving and safe storage.

Maryland cannabis business leaders and regulators say that legalization has gone smoothly since the launch a year ago. Maryland taxes nonmedical marijuana sales at a rate of 9%, and netted $41.4 million in revenue the first nine months of legalized recreational cannabis, according to the state comptroller’s office.

On the first anniversary of recreational legalization, do you approve of recreational cannabis use in Maryland, a year after it was legalized in the state?

The Baltimore Sun reader poll is an unscientific survey in which website users volunteer their opinions on the subject of the poll.

To read the results of previous reader polls, click here.

But on July 1, on the first anniversary of recreational legalization, Maryland cannabis business leaders and regulators say that legalization has gone smoothly here, in part because they learned from other states that had already carried out the legalization processes. With the immediate transition finished, the industry is now adjusting to a cannabis market that is maturing, along with its consumer base.

Cannabis use is no longer taboo and can now be discussed in terms of “everyday use,” said Chase Lessman, senior director of sales for the Bethesda-based cannabis company CULTA. Many of his recreational customers are either new to cannabis and learning about it, or returning after decades of nonuse.

Many Maryland residents are less rosy in their outlook, however. Two-thirds of state voters approved recreational cannabis in 2022, with the understanding that, in addition to creating a new revenue stream, it would help correct social equity imbalances that led Black people in particular to be disproportionately punished for marijuana use. But a recent Washington Post-University of Maryland poll found that Maryland voters’ feelings have become cooled since then, with only about a third of voters now saying legalization has been a good thing.

One out of three saw legalization as bad overall; and the remaining third of voters said it was neither good nor bad. Some have raised concerns over the increased concentration of THC, the psychoactive component in cannabis, in today’s products, along with the health risks posed by cannabis use and the potential for driving under the influence.

Some Maryland jurisdictions, including Carroll and Prince George’s counties, have aimed to limit where dispensaries can be located following clashes over the new businesses. In Carroll County, where local government discussions about cannabis have become especially heated, leaders floated the idea of again outlawing recreational cannabis.

“People are now making it clear they don’t want predatory pot-profiteers setting up shop in their communities,” Kevin Sabet said in a statement in advance of the first anniversary of recreational sales. The former White House drug adviser in the Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations has become a nationally known anti-pot activist.

It’s unclear yet whether the controversy in some areas is part of the normal growing pains within the burgeoning industry or a sign of trouble to come.

A maturing industry

From July 2023 through May of this year, dispensaries have made nearly 10 million transactions and logged more than $1 billion in total sales of flowers, edibles, concentrates and seeds, according to Maryland Cannabis Administration data. Nearly two-thirds of those sales were recreational, made to adults 21 and over outside the state’s medical cannabis program.

Maryland taxes nonmedical marijuana sales at a rate of 9%, and netted $41.4 million in revenue in the first nine months of legalized recreational cannabis, according to the state comptroller’s office.

A year out from legalization, though, the growth of the state’s cannabis industry may not be apparent to the average cannabis consumer. With few exceptions, the growers, processors and dispensaries that make up Maryland’s cannabis business landscape are the same ones that opened their doors to adult use a year ago.

A focus on social equity

“What makes Maryland unique is the intention that went into it as far as repairing the harms of the war on drugs,” said William Tilburg, director of the new Maryland Cannabis Administration, which is based in Linthicum.

The decadeslong U.S. campaign to curb drug abuse and related societal ills through criminal enforcement amplified cycles of poverty by leaving incarcerating millions of Americans — disproportionately Black, Latino and other racial minorities — with criminal records for drug offenses, public health experts said. That history led Gov. Wes Moore to last month issue more than 175,000 pardons for misdemeanor cannabis possession and use convictions in the state.

The Maryland legislature’s cannabis reform package required certain possession charges to be automatically expunged. The legislation also set up a framework to ensure that people from the areas most impacted by prohibition — measured by the number of cannabis possession charges issued there — don’t get left out.

Some of the state’s pot-related revenues, including around $65 million from cannabis license conversion fees paid by businesses, as well as more than a third of revenues from the 9% sales and use tax, go into a fund used to invest in localized programs in communities based on how much they were impacted.

The laws also aim to give people from those neighborhoods a fair shake at participating in the marketplace without being crushed by industry giants. To that end, business licenses were converted from those already granted under the state’s medical cannabis system into licenses for underserved groups. The first licensing round, held by lottery, focuses entirely on social equity applicants — potential businesses meeting certain thresholds for their owners’ communities being disproportionally impacted by cannabis possession charges.

A March drawing picked 174 lottery winners, a group that is “chomping at the bit to get in this market and get going,” Tilburg said. Around 75% of the businesses self-reported that they were majority-minority owned, which Tilburg described as “a really stark contrast” to the diversity of ownership across all industries, but especially in cannabis. An additional drawing was held Friday to pick 31 more applicants.

In addition to standard grower, processor and dispensary licenses, four “micro” licenses were awarded to small businesses that will be cannabis delivery services without a physical storefront. An additional 60 growers and processors were also awarded a micro license, which limits the size of their operations.

Winners have 18 months from the drawing dates to get their businesses up and running; in the meantime, the cannabis administration and industry partners are helping them set up.

The state also is working on developing an incubator space to house microbusinesses, providing storage for micro-dispensaries, grow space for micro-growers and commercial kitchens for micro-processors to help them reduce costs.

“They need to find locations, build them out, get IT, legal services all those things, and so [we’re] connecting those businesses, those awardees with subject matter experts who can help them,” Tilburg said.

A new agency for a new industry

Until last year, the Maryland Cannabis Administration was known as the Maryland Medical Cannabis Commission and had just over 50 employees. The agency is now authorized for more than twice as many employees, and has filled most of those new positions, Tilburg said.

Maryland completed the transition despite a short runway, with less than two months between Moore’s signing of the cannabis reform law and recreational sales beginning. Tilburg said the state has thus far avoided the “operational issues” — like staffing up too slowly — that other states, like New York, struggled with.

He credits the easy transition to the “attention and thought” that state lawmakers put into cannabis reform legislation, as well as operational support from Moore’s administration.

Maryland legislators had models to look at as they crafted the state’s recreational cannabis system — about 20 U.S. states had taken steps to legalize recreational cannabis by the time the Cannabis Reform Act landed on Moore’s desk.

Addressing public health concerns

From a public health perspective, the reform law includes a multitude of regulations, including product labeling mandates, according to Mathew Swinburne, a public health lawyer focusing on cannabis law and policy based University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law, which hosted a media panel on the topic in June.

Packaging can’t contain images that may appeal to minors, such as food products, cartoons, toys or animals. They are required to be child-resistant, must contain certain warning statements, and must disclose all noncannabis ingredients as well as itemized measurements of all cannabinoids and terpene ingredients.

Those measurements come in part from the state’s product testing rules, Swinburne said.

Most cannabis products are being tested at independent labs. But the cannabis administration is working on rolling out a state reference lab to serve as a check on the accuracy of those independent labs — “something not a lot of states do,” Swinburne said.

Other states have struggled to definitively measure public health impacts of their own legalized pot system. In Maryland, the impacts are not yet known, but they are being measured and will be compared with results of a statewide survey before recreational cannabis legalization, which set a baseline. Among the categories being tracked are the rates adult and youth use pot, as well as data on mental health outcomes associated with using marijuana and how many people are identified as driving under the influence of cannabis.

A recent proposal by U.S. officials to reclassify cannabis as a less dangerous drug could open the doors to more research on marijuana itself, but the ramifications of the rescheduling are mostly unclear. The move by the Biden administration was met with resistance from some, including Maryland Rep. Andy Harris.

The Republican congressman argued that the decision “lacks both substance and data,” questioning research on cannabis’ medical uses and urging federal officials to consider impacts on pregnant women and children, as well as its effects on driving under the influence of marijuana.

The biggest concern for public health officials in the state, according to Swinburne, is the impact that recreational cannabis for adults will have on youth cannabis use. The baseline study noted that the state’s annual youth risk survey found that more than 26% of Maryland high schoolers during the 2021-22 academic year had tried marijuana. Results released last week show that the number dropped to about 23% the following academic year — before recreational cannabis became legal in Maryland.

Adult use of cannabis increases once it’s legal, other states have shown, but “that doesn’t seem to be true for adolescent use,” according to media panel participant Leah Sera, a University of Maryland School of Pharmacy professor who serves on the state’s Cannabis Public Health Advisory Council.

“That’s encouraging,” Sera said at the panel. “But that doesn’t mean that we aren’t concerned about it and that we’re not going to have a strong public health, public education effort in schools.”

Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown, University of Baltimore School of Law Center for Criminal Justice Reform Executive Director Heather Warnken, and Jason Ortiz, director of strategic initiatives with the Last Prisoner Project, will also speak at the event, according to the governor’s office.

Moore will issue pardons for 175,000 marijuana convictions Monday, according to The Washington Post.

Marylanders voted to approve a constitutional amendment to legalize recreational cannabis in November 2022, and Moore signed a law in May 2023 to create and regulate the state’s industry.

The pardons will forgive possession charges for an estimated 100,000 people, according to The Washington Post.

“I’m ecstatic that we have a real opportunity with what I’m signing to right a lot of historical wrongs,” Moore said in an interview with The Post. “If you want to be able to create inclusive economic growth, it means you have to start removing these barriers that continue to disproportionately sit on communities of color.”

Maryland officials said the pardon will not result in releasing anyone from incarceration because none are imprisoned, according to The Post. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, Maryland still incarcerates the highest percentage of Black people in the country at 71% of the prison population, more than twice the national average. Maryland also leads the nation in sentencing young Black men to the longest prison terms, at a rate 25% higher than the second highest rate, in Mississippi.

Moore campaigned on implementing a recreational cannabis industry with a focus on equity in 2022. In Maryland, people incarcerated for cannabis possession can apply for resentencing hearings, and the first round of licenses for new recreational cannabis stores went to business owners who lived or attended school in areas of disproportionally impacted by cannabis criminalization. Additionally, people convicted of possession with the intent to distribute cannabis can file to have their records expunged three years after they have completed their sentence, including parole, probation, or mandatory supervision.

“The criminalization of marijuana harmed low-income communities and communities of color and in a profound way,” Moore said in May 2023. “We want to make sure that the legalization of marijuana lifts those communities now in a profound way.”

According to the state department of public safety and correctional services, a pardon does not expunge a person’s criminal record, and the power to expunge a record may only be exercised by the courts. Criminal records have been used to deny housing, employment and education, holding people and their families back long after their sentences have been served, according to The Post.

In December, President Joe Biden pardoned thousands of people who were convicted of use and possession of marijuana on federal lands and in the District of Columbia, according to The Associated Press. Last month at a campaign speech in Philadelphia alongside Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott and Moore, Biden touted that accomplishment in a pitch to black voters.

In March, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healy said she would pardon tens of thousands of people convicted of misdemeanor marijuana charges, joining Rhode Island, Connecticut Missouri and Oregon in forgiving low-level marijuana offenses, according to AP.

This story will be updated.

For the first time, the number of Americans who use marijuana just about every day has surpassed the number who drink that often, a shift some 40 years in the making as recreational pot use became more mainstream and legal in nearly half of U.S. states.

In 2022, an estimated 17.7 million people reported using marijuana daily or near-daily compared to 14.7 million daily or near-daily drinkers, according an analysis of national survey data. In 1992, when daily pot use hit a low point, less than 1 million people said they used marijuana nearly every day.

Alcohol is still more widely used, but 2022 was the first time this intensive level of marijuana use overtook daily and near-daily drinking, said the study’s author, Jonathan Caulkins, a cannabis policy researcher at Carnegie Mellon University.

“A good 40% of current cannabis users are using it daily or near daily, a pattern that is more associated with tobacco use than typical alcohol use,” Caulkins said.

The research, based on data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, was published Wednesday in the journal Addiction. The survey is a highly regarded source of self-reported estimates of tobacco, alcohol and drug use in the United States.

From 1992 to 2022, the per capita rate of reporting daily or near-daily marijuana use increased 15-fold. Caulkins acknowledged in the study that people may be more willing to report marijuana use as public acceptance grows, which could boost the increase.

Most states now allow medical or recreational marijuana, though it remains illegal at the federal level. In November, Florida voters will decide on a constitutional amendment allowing recreational cannabis, and the federal government is moving to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug.

Research shows that high-frequency users are more likely to become addicted to marijuana, said Dr. David A. Gorelick, a psychiatry professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, who was not involved in the study.

The number of daily users suggests that more people are at risk for developing problematic cannabis use or addiction, Gorelick said.

“High frequency use also increases the risk of developing cannabis-associated psychosis,” a severe condition where a person loses touch with reality, he said.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

In an isolated part of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration headquarters known as the 12th-floor “bubble,” chief Anne Milgram made an unusual request of top deputies summoned in March for what she called the “Marijuana Meeting”: Nobody could take notes.

Over the next half hour, she broke the news that the Biden administration would soon be issuing a long-awaited order reclassifying pot as a less-dangerous drug, a major hurdle toward federal legalization that DEA has long resisted. And Milgram went on to reveal another twist, according to two people familiar with the private meeting who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, that the process normally steered by the DEA had been taken over by the U.S. Justice Department and the action would not be signed by her but by Attorney General Merrick Garland.

Milgram didn’t give aides a reason for the unprecedented omission and neither she nor the DEA has explained since. But it unfolded this past week exactly as laid out in that meeting two months ago, with the most significant drug policy change in 50 years launched without the support of the nation’s premier narcotics agency.

“DEA has not yet made a determination as to its views of the appropriate schedule for marijuana,” reads a sentence tucked 13 pages into Garland’s 92-page order last Thursday outlining the Biden administration proposal to shift pot from its current Schedule I alongside heroin and LSD to the less tightly regulated Schedule III with such drugs as ketamine and some anabolic steroids.

Internal records accompanying the order indicate the DEA sent a memo to the Justice Department in late January seeking additional scientific input to determine whether marijuana has an accepted medical use, a key requirement for reclassification. But those concerns were overruled by Justice Department attorneys, who deemed the DEA’s criteria “impermissibly narrow.”

Several current and former DEA officials told the AP they believe politics may be at play, contending the Justice Department is moving forward with the marijuana reclassification because President Joe Biden wants to use the issue to woo voters in his re-election campaign and wasn’t willing to give the DEA time for more studies that likely would have dragged beyond Election Day.

Those officials also noted that while the Controlled Substances Act grants the attorney general responsibility for regulating the sale of dangerous drugs, federal law still delegates the authority to classify drugs to the DEA administrator.

“It’s crystal clear to me that the Justice Department hijacked the rescheduling process, placing politics above public safety,” said Derek Maltz, a retired agent who once headed the DEA’s Special Operations Division. “If there’s scientific evidence to support this decision, then so be it. But you’ve got to let the scientists evaluate it.”

Former DEA Administrator Tim Shea said the striking absence of Milgram’s sign-off suggests she was backing “the DEA professionals.”

“If she had supported it she would have signed it and sent it in,” said Shea, who served in the Trump administration. “DEA was opposed to this and the politics entered and overruled them. It’s demoralizing. Everybody from the agents in the streets to the leadership in DEA knows the dangers this brings.”

The White House did not respond to a request for comment but Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre previously said Biden was committed to fulfilling a 2020 campaign promise. “He said no person, no American who possesses marijuana should go to jail. It is affecting communities across the country, including communities of color.”

Justice Department attorneys defended Garland’s decision to proceed without Milgram’s backing, saying in a separate memo that the action was prompted by “sharply different views” between DEA and the Department of Health and Human Services. The HHS last year recommended reclassifying marijuana, deeming it less risky to public health than cocaine, heroin and oxycodone, and effective in treating anorexia, pain and other ailments.

HHS concluded in part that “although abuse of marijuana produces clear evidence of a risk to public health, that risk is relatively lower than” that posed by other drugs.

The DEA balked at those findings and Garland’s order cites at least 10 times when the drug agency requested additional information before blessing HHS’ medical findings. It did not respond to AP questions seeking further comment.

The Justice Department didn’t comment on internal differences but in a statement said that the proposal was “consistent with the scientific and medical determinations of HHS.” The department added it was legally required to follow HHS’s scientific and medical findings that marijuana should be reclassified, at least until the start of the rulemaking process.

The dissonance within the federal government underscores the continuing debate over the risks posed by cannabis, even as 38 states have legalized medical marijuana and 24 have legalized its recreational use. All the while, more voters — 70% of adults, according to a Gallup poll last fall — support legalization, the highest level yet recorded by the polling firm.

“The argument that marijuana is as dangerous as fentanyl, cocaine and meth is laughable,” said Matthew C. Zorn, a Houston-based attorney who writes a newsletter on cannabis regulation. “The DEA isn’t where most Americans are. They’re standing on the wrong side of history.”

But even HHS’ National Institute on Drug Abuse has come out with statements in apparent conflict with HHS’ recommendation to reclassify pot, saying the potency of marijuana has been steadily increasing over the years, resulting in higher numbers of emergency room visits to treat a wide range of physical and mental effects, from breathing problems and mental impairment to hallucinations and paranoia.

“Whether smoking or otherwise consuming marijuana has therapeutic benefits that outweigh its health risks is still an open question that science has not resolved,” Nora Volkow, a neuroscientist who leads NIDA, is currently quoted as saying on the institute’s website. A NIDA spokesperson said rescheduling would facilitate research more into the drug.

The NIDA last performed a medical evaluation of marijuana in 2015 — a year before the Obama administration’s DEA rejected a similar request to reschedule the drug.

This time, after Biden ordered a review of the drug’s status in 2022, HHS adopted new criteria to reach its rescheduling conclusion, taking into account the states that have already legalized medical marijuana.

The rescheduling move, first reported by the AP last month, faces a potentially lengthy process. The DEA, which must show “significant deference” to HHS’ medical determinations, according to Justice Department attorneys, will now take public comment on the rescheduling plan before a review by an administrative judge and the publishing of a final rule. Federal prosecutions involving marijuana are already exceedingly rare but a Schedule III classification would still make pot a controlled substance subject to rules and regulations

For her part, Milgram has said little about her stance on marijuana and was not asked about it during her confirmation. When she took the helm of the agency in 2021, she privately told colleagues she considered the legalization debate a distraction from the far more serious fentanyl crisis, according to one of the people who spoke to the AP.

Milgram is known for a progressive, data-driven approach to law enforcement dating to her days as the Democratic attorney general of New Jersey. When the state’s governor, a close ally, signed a bill in 2010 making the state the 14th to make marijuana legal for medical purposes, she said only that the legislation was “workable.”

This past week, she was similarly opaque in a three-sentence announcement to DEA employees obtained by the AP.

“As required,” she wrote, “the DEA will post this notice and all attachments on our website.”

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Goodman reported from Miami, Mustian from New York. AP Writer Lindsay Whitehurst in Washington contributed.

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Contact AP’s global investigative team at Investigative@ap.org or https://www.ap.org/tips/

The Board of Carroll County Commissioners voted 3-2 at their meeting Thursday to change the county’s zoning code to allow businesses with state licenses to sell recreational marijuana within county boundaries.

District 2 Commissioner Ken Kiler, District 3 Commissioner Thomas Gordon III and District 5 Commissioner Ed Rothstein voted in favor, while District 1 Commissioner Joe Vigliotti and District 4 Commissioner Michael Guerin voted against the motion.

“I don’t think I need to highlight how dangerous today’s cannabis is,” said Guerin, who has been vocal about his opposition to cannabis use for months, saying that the drug is more powerful now than it was in the 1960s and 1970s.

“I think it’s important to mention that the ordinance we’re discussing here is a county ordinance. … I know there’s been a lot of talk about the referendum, but I read the referendum as authorizing and legalizing the use (of recreational marijuana). It didn’t say anything about the sale,” Guerin added.

During the 2022 general election Maryland residents overwhelmingly approved a ballot referendum to legalize the recreational use of cannabis statewide. In Carroll County, 41,499 (59.43%) of residents voted in favor of the referendum, according to the Carroll County Board of Elections website.

As of July 1, 2023, individuals 21 and older can legally use, possess and consume up to 1.5 ounces of cannabis flower, 12 grams of concentrated cannabis, or a total amount of cannabis products that does not exceed 750 mg of THC in Maryland. This amount is known as the “personal use amount.”

“I don’t think we should approve any of this,” Guerin said. “Sometimes states get things wrong. If the state is going to tell us what to do, and they know better than Carroll County, then why do this? Why not go a step further and say, ‘No, we do not want this.’ As far as the county jurisdiction, we don’t want to sell it. We don’t want it anywhere in our county, and see what happens.”

There was concern among commissioners that if the county refused to allow the sale of cannabis in its jurisdiction, state officials could withhold county funding needed for other services.

“The state has been known to withhold funds to get compliance with state law,” County Attorney Tim Burke said.

Burke also warned that if cannabis retailers attempting to open a store in the county are denied, they could retaliate in court.

Rothstein said though voters “overwhelmingly” voted for recreational cannabis across the state, the approved law should have included a provision allowing each individual jurisdiction the authority to decide not to allow the sale of marijuana.

“I believe that the state got it wrong,” Rothstein said. “The legislation should have had the opt-out policy in place. To allow the counties to govern the counties. They didn’t do that. If they had the opt-out policy, I could see taking another route, and having a deeper discussion. The legislation did not do that. … We are now in a position, I think we should move forward.”

Carroll County’s current zoning code already includes regulations for businesses selling medical cannabis. This vote will change the code to allow for recreational marijuana sales as well.

Two marijuana dispensaries in the City of Westminster have been selling cannabis products for several years, including recreational cannabis, once it became legal. Two new dispensaries have been waiting to open in the county, the board said during the meeting, but did not give other details.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department on Thursday formally moved to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug, a historic shift in generations of U.S. drug policy.

A proposed rule sent to the federal register recognizes the medical uses of cannabis and acknowledges it has less potential for abuse than some of the nation’s most dangerous drugs. The plan approved by Attorney General Merrick Garland would not legalize marijuana outright for recreational use.

The Drug Enforcement Administration will next take public comment on the proposal in a potentially lengthy process. If approved, the rule would move marijuana away from its current classification as a Schedule I drug, alongside heroin and LSD. Pot would instead be a Schedule III substance, alongside ketamine and some anabolic steroids.

The move comes after a recommendation from the federal Health and Human Services Department, which launched a review of the drug’s status at the urging of President Joe Biden in 2022.

Biden also has moved to pardon thousands of people convicted federally of simple possession of marijuana and has called on governors and local leaders to take similar steps to erase convictions.

“This is monumental,” Biden said in a video statement, calling it an important move toward reversing longstanding inequities. “Far too many lives have been upended because of a failed approach to marijuana, and I’m committed to righting those wrongs. You have my word on it.”

The election year announcement could help Biden, a Democrat, boost flagging support, particularly among younger voters.

The notice kicks off a 60-day comment period followed by a possible review from an administrative judge, which could be a drawn-out process.

Biden and a growing number of lawmakers from both major political parties have been pushing for the DEA decision as marijuana has become increasingly decriminalized and accepted, particularly by younger people. Some argue that rescheduling doesn’t go far enough and marijuana should instead be treated the way alcohol is.

Democratic Senate Majority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York applauded the change and called for additional steps toward legalization.

The U.S. Cannabis Council, a trade group, said the switch would “signal a tectonic shift away from the failed policies of the last 50 years.”

The Justice Department said that available data reviewed by HHS shows that while marijuana “is associated with a high prevalence of abuse,” that potential is more in line with other Schedule III substances, according to the proposed rule.

The HHS recommendations are binding until the draft rule is submitted, and Garland agreed with it for the purposes of starting the process.

Still, the DEA has not yet formed its own determination as to where marijuana should be scheduled, and it expects to learn more during the rulemaking process, the document states.

Some critics argue the DEA shouldn’t change course on marijuana, saying rescheduling isn’t necessary and could lead to harmful side effects.

Dr. Kevin Sabet, a former White House drug policy adviser now with the group Smart Approaches to Marijuana, said there isn’t enough data to support moving pot to Schedule III. “As we’ve maintained throughout this process, it’s become undeniable that politics, not science, is driving this decision and has been since the very beginning,” Sabet said.

The immediate effect of rescheduling on the nation’s criminal justice system is expected to be muted. Federal prosecutions for simple possession have been fairly rare in recent years.

Schedule III drugs are still controlled substances and subject to rules and regulations, and people who traffic in them without permission could still face federal criminal prosecution.

Federal drug policy has lagged behind many states in recent years, with 38 states having already legalized medical marijuana and 24 legalizing its recreational use. That’s helped fuel fast growth in the marijuana industry, with an estimated worth of nearly $30 billion.

Easing federal regulations could reduce the tax burden that can be 70% or more for marijuana businesses, according to industry groups. It also could make it easier to research marijuana, since it’s very difficult to conduct authorized clinical studies on Schedule I substances.

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Associated Press writers Zeke Miller in Washington and Joshua Goodman in Miami contributed to this report.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of marijuana at https://apnews.com/hub/marijuana.